


Betrayal, Blurred At The Edges

by EmmyJay, notsomajestic



Series: Spectre [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 16:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyJay/pseuds/EmmyJay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsomajestic/pseuds/notsomajestic
Summary: Post-series finale, Megatron receives an unexpected visitor at Trypticon Prison.The dead have no shortage of regrets, after all.





	Betrayal, Blurred At The Edges

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a roleplay between myself (Starscream) and notsomajestic (Megatron), edited to read as a single narrative.

To most of its prisoners, Trypticon Prison was silent during the night cycle. The guards did most of their patrolling remotely, though the means by which they did so was unclear; at times it seemed almost as though the structure itself were watching, keeping a careful eye on its charges.

Nonetheless, it meant there were no patrols of guards marching along the cells to fill the space with their pedefalls. The block which held the Decepticon commanders was quiet to all who listened.

At least, save for the gentle _tap_ , _tap_ of thrusters on metal, approaching one of the cells—but that was a sound for only one mech's audials.

In the months following his humiliating defeat and immediate imprisonment, Megatron hadn't stopped thinking. Despite outward appearances, he had not resigned himself to his fate, nor was he in stasis. No; he saw and heard everything that passed his cell.

That included the sound he had come to associate with only one flier's approach. His optics flared brightly as he turned them to face the translucent force field door, and immediately his energon ran cold.

_'Impossible.'_

The Seeker looked much the same as he did on Earth: once-pristine armor battered and cracked, shades of grey in deactivation; forehelm torn open where the All-Spark fragment had ripped its way free. His optics, dull and unlit, seemed unusually large in his helm. Offline as they were, it should have been impossible for Starscream to see anything, and yet he seemed to find his former leader easily, pinning him with that empty stare.

He smiled.

Megatron had seen countless dead mecha in his time—been responsible for the majority of them, but never before had any of them affected him like this. He certainly didn't fear the Seeker, but something about those lifeless optics chilled his very spark.

"You're supposed to be offline," he said simply, quietly, remaining motionless in his seat as his faceplate betrayed none of the turmoil within.

That smile split Starscream's faceplate wider. He opened his intake to speak, but the words did come from his vocalizer; instead, they seemed to come from much closer, as though whispered in the warlord's audials.

"You would know," they said, "being the one who **murdered** me."

The way that familiar voice sounded so close unnerved the warlord further; it wasn't right. It reminded him far too much of how they would whisper to each other in the darkest depths of the _Nemesis_ all those stellar cycles ago.

The Seeker took a step back, sightless optics taking in the forcefield barrier which kept Megatron imprisoned. He gave a look of something like approval, before meeting the other's gaze with his sightless optics.

"Look at you."

Megatron's face fell and he growled, optics narrowing in visible irritation.

"Look at yourself," he snarled. "You are hardly a picture of health."

"Ah," Starscream countered, vocals still coming from that unnatural closeness, "but I am no longer among the functioning. What's **your** excuse, I wonder?"

The _tap_ , _tap_ of the Seeker's pedes echoed in the otherwise silent hallway as he stalked in front of the row of cells, slipping momentarily out of Megatron's view as he inspected the warlord's neighbours. A complete lack of reaction from the other cells confirmed what was already obvious: that Starscream was visible only to one.

"To think, the Great and Mighty Megatron fell at the hands of an Autobot," he continued, moving back into view. "This would never have happened if **I** had been leader—like so much else."

If looks could kill, Starscream would have been sent back to the Well a thousand times over. The last thing Megatron needed right now was to be reminded of the humiliating defeat that had put him here. His servos balled into tight fists and oh, did he yearn to show the Seeker how he was still as 'Great and Mighty' as he had been when they had first met all those millions of stellar cycles ago.

A shame, really, that he couldn't reach out and feel that once-pristine plating crumple and dent in his grip.

"If you had been leader, the Decepticons would have fallen apart the moment the war ended," he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world with the ghost of a smirk playing at the edges of his lips, knowing his words would needle.

"And things are so different now?"

The Seeker swept out an arm, gesturing to the prison surrounding them: cold, desolate, containing. "The war has ended, _Master_ —but where are the Decepticons? Locked away, imprisoned, rendered impotent by a handful of Autobots!

"Or do you still pretend this is nothing more than a **temporary** setback?" Starscream shook his helm, tutting reproachfully. "You always did love your delusions."

Unadulterated rage flared through the warlord's field at his former Second's goading. He wanted to simply brush it off as a mindless attempt to torment him, but those words rang true; he, along with nearly all of his most valuable Decepticons, had been incarcerated in this nigh inescapable prison.

For the others, they faced an eternity of imprisonment. For himself, however, he knew that this was merely temporary; the Autobots had every intention of executing him after an entirely pointless trial. It would be the end of everything he had ever worked towards for the majority of his life cycle.

Unacceptable.

"There is no _pretending_ , Starscream," he snapped, lip components curling into a snarl. "I will find a way to escape. Surrender has never been an option, and we will claim Cybertron for the Decepticons."

"Indeed you will."

And now there was a strange lilt to the Seeker's voice: smug, self-assured; every inch the scraplet that ate the symbiote. It was a lilt that sang, _I know something you **don't**_ , and that tone caught the warlord's attention; he had known the seeker for long enough to have come to learn the little variations in his tone—fifty stellar cycles truly apart hadn't dulled his senses—and he knew this one meant he was hiding something.

The way Starscream had agreed that he would indeed escape was also rather curious; he would have been certain that he would have mocked him further for even believing that it was possible.

"But enough of all _that_." Now Starscream turned his sightless optics to his own claws, inspecting the digits—a casual, arrogant pose if ever there was one. "I did not come here to indulge in your vanities, after all. No, **Master** …I have _questions_."

(Oh, if the way he still referred to him as 'Master' didn't have a bolt of electricity shooting down Megatron's spinal strut, despite his better judgment.)

"Questions?" The warlord responded with his own equally smug tone, voice low and even despite his outrage. "Really, and I thought you had come to keep me company."

"Yes, because your company is **such** a delight." The words dripped with false platitudes, as they had for so many millennia. The way Starscream spoke to him brought forward memories of what had been before, what they had shared. Whispered words of affection, servos ghosting over plating, promises—

Though there was no movement to indicate the direction of those empty, offlined optics, there was certainly a feeling that they were locked now on the warlord in his cell. And though the arrogance remained in Starscream's stance and tone, something new bled into the words he spoke. Something needing; something _hungry_.

"My first question: what will you do with your freedom? And don't say, 'win,'" he added the last disparagingly, "I can see clearly how well **that** plan of action turned out."

Megatron stared daggers at the apparition before him, lip components pressing into a thin line in response to the little addition; Starscream wasn't _wrong_ —and he rarely was, despite what he often told himself—but that didn't mean it was something he wanted to hear, especially not right now. His ego had already been bruised by that last battle and he hardly needed reminding of his most recent loss.

"I will take all of the imprisoned Decepticons with me," he responded, vocals hushed lest an Autobot guard overhear him. "I will rebuild our army to what it was before our exile, and liberate Cybertron with the full might of the Decepticons behind me once again."

It took almost all of his self-restraint to not rise from his bench and loudly and animatedly proclaim exactly what he planned to the Seeker, just as he had always done. 

Old habits died hard, apparently.

"So confident." Was that a touch of fondness in Starscream's tone? "It was what drew me to you, back then. What always pulled me back.

"But surely you know this will be your final chance." And now he pressed forward, against—no, _through_ the barrier, into the cell itself. "You failed once; fail a second time, and you will not be followed for a third. Everything you've ever fought for will rest on this.

"So tell me, **Master** ," his vocals dropped, so low they would have been inaudible, were it not for the otherworldly way they came directly beside the warlord's audials, " _will you be victorious?_ "

Megatron remained still, optics trained upon those dead ones. Cramped as it was, he should have felt even more constricted with the presence of another almost his own size joining him in the already small cell, yet he felt nothing. None of the familiar weight on his frame, nor the caress of a field against his own as his personal space was breached. It was more obvious than ever now that the Seeker lacked warmth, or any sense that he was even there.

For the first time, it truly hit home that Starscream was entirely gone in body.

"I know," came the hushed response, acknowledging the true weight of his potential new opportunity. The honesty in Starscream's words and talk of what had brought them together in the beginning had his spark constricting. Oh, what could have been if they had remained side-by-side until the very end.

But the question demanded an answer, and after a brief pause he gave it—louder this time, with familiar passion in his vocals and determination in his optics: "Yes, Starscream: I will do what should have been done long ago, and lead the Decepticons to victory."

A smile bloomed across the Seeker's faceplates. It was a smile which had not seen the light for many millions of years. It was soft, warm, affectionate; it was _happy_.

And it was visible only for a moment, before Starscream closed the gap between them, and pressed his mouthplates to Megatron's; the warlord acutely aware of his lack of physical form, but when the Seeker leaned toward him he couldn't help moving to meet him halfway, still anticipating the familiar press of his lips.

As expected, there was no physical presence behind the kiss, no familiar press of components. But there was _something_ there: a feeling of awareness being communicated, spreading from that point of contact. Something almost like—

Like an EM field: humming about the entire prison, seeping through—no, **from** the walls, so constant and droning that it faded, ignored, into background noise. Something big, something powerful: offline, but not deactivated. Sleeping.

 _Waiting_.

Megatron's optics onlined suddenly—having offlined in anticipation of a kiss—and his ventilations stalled as he stared at the apparition with a stunned expression plastered across his faceplates.

If what he felt was true, that would mean—

"This is my gift to you, Megatron," the Seeker whispered—drawn away, though he remained in his previous proximity to the warlord. There was something pained about his expression, something that seemed to have ached when Megatron met him halfway. "Wake him, and he will be yours to lead."

_Trypticon._

"How did you come by this?" Megatron asked, vocals hushed with optics wide and the sound of his title-less name ringing in his audials.

The Seeker smiled, too wide and with too many dentae. "Does it really matter?"

So many possibilities presented themselves to Megatron, and in that moment, there was a clarity he hadn't felt since he had first merged the AllSpark with his own life force; he had a perfect means to achieve his ultimate goal and all he had to do now was awaken the slumbering colossus within which he was held.

"Perhaps not," he agreed, voice hardly betraying the way his spark lurched forwards, chasing after one which had long since been extinguished. So many millennia of resentment, ages spent hating each other until they could no longer remember what it was like to feel otherwise. What might have been, had they followed a different path? Where might they be now, had they refused to be broken apart?

Megatron hated the way Starscream had wormed his way into his spark and refused to leave, no matter how much they had grown to resent each other. Despite never having bonded, he couldn't let go. He had grown attached to his Second in a way he had never experienced before or since, and even through they had been at each other's throats while on that organic planet, he hadn't felt really, truly separated from him.

Starscream had always been nearby. Now, for the first time in millions of years, he would be alone.

With a deep ventilation, the warlord tried focusing on something other than the inevitable loss of the Seeker—namely the titan surrounding them. From what he had heard, titans were said to be somewhat intelligent, which made matters a little more complex; with Omega Supreme's simple processor, he had been able to override his thoughts by simply wiring himself directly into the ship. This time, he would have to awaken the titan from stasis and convince him to do his bidding—all without alerting the Autobot guards.

Grateful as he was for Starscream's gift, he knew it wouldn't be easy. A titan was no drone: it had its own mind, one that could not be forced to bend were it not willing. It would have to be convinced.

But if anyone could do it, if anyone had the silver glossa to turn a titan to their cause—it would be Megatron.

"I will use him to win Cybertron for the Decepticons once and for all. Watch me, Starscream." The grin that split across his face plates was a familiarly confident one, meant for the Seeker's optics alone. And Starscream’s own grin was one to match it.

"Oh, I will."

A spectral servo ghosted across the warlord’s chestplate, unfelt digits tracing the insignia there.

"I'll watch because whatever you thought of me, I want to see the Decepticons triumph. Because I want to see us victorious, and see the Autobots punished for everything they have done.

"And I'll watch, because I loved you." The Seeker leaned forward, grinning as though his words were some great triumph. "So **there**."

Megatron's spark seemed to freeze the moment those last few words met his audials, thought of anything else leaving his processor almost immediately. They rang over and over again through his mind and smothered anything else that dared to try and make itself known.

He knew he shouldn't have been affected in this way by the admission. He should have known, but neither had ever admitted such before now.

Lip components parted to respond, servo reaching out to at least attempt to touch the apparition—

But Starscream was already gone, without so much as a wisp to indicate he was ever there to begin with.

For a long moment, Megatron's arm hung in the air as he started at the blank cell wall and tried to process what he had been told, about the Titan he was imprisoned within, the Seeker's parting declaration. In less than a megacycle, everything had changed, turned on its head by the only being Megatron thought capable of doing so.

His servo fell back to his side and a soft smile made its way onto his faceplates. He would do this. He would succeed, thanks to Starscream's gift. This victory would be for the both of them, he thought while firing two of his fingertips to the opposite wall, linked to him by twin lengths of cabling. It was primitive, but undoubtedly effective.

_'You had better be watching, Starscream.'_

**Author's Note:**

> The original RP thread started with a combination of wondering, "hey what if Trypticon Prison in TFA was ACTUALLY Trypticon?" and a myriad of 'ghost blowjob' jokes. Because that's just how we roll.


End file.
